Data science every day!
When we talk of data science, what comes into your head? Companies like facebook collecting user data and showing ads based on that? Or is it apps like gmail automatically filtering out spam emails? Sure, all these are applications of data science. But nothing stops us from applying concepts of data science to make our lives better. I have some experience around this, and with this article, I would like you to know what I did and how it benefitted me, and how it can benefit you too!
Ever since I became a salaried employee (around 4 years ago), I wanted to be financially disciplined. I tried putting some restrictions on myself; a limit on monthly budget, which never seemed to work. So, I thought of observing my behavior and taking actions based on it. From 2019 June 1st, I started recording every financial transaction on this app called money manager. It allows me to record each transaction under categories like groceries, fruits and veggies, transport, bills, shopping, etc. At the end of each month, I get a pie chart of how my spending habits have been. This helps me clearly identify which categories end up costing me the most.
In my example, home category costs me the most. This is because it includes the house rent which is substantial when you are living in a metro city. How I analyzed this data is, I looked at each category and how much it costed me. When looked at individual transactions under a category, I clearly knew which category is not essential. Now, after 3 months of this data, I could clearly recognize which category to put limits on (In my case, it was entertainment). Now once I identified it, it was just a matter of conscious spending. After that, if I look at the total expenses per month, I could clearly see over 20% reduction compared to the first 3 months. Of course, there are, and there will be outliers. In some months, I would like to spend on a gift for my parents, a furniture upgrade, etc.; and it will end up costing me more. But I am just talking about the general pattern.
With this exercise, I got clarity on my data, which I didn’t have before. Without documenting, I forget what I did a week ago, let alone a month. With all the data at one place, it became easier to find patterns and take decisions based on that.
Now, which resource is more important than money? It’s THE OPTIMUS TIME 😂 Now if it worked for money, why wouldn’t it work for time? There is one problem with logging time. I didn’t know which scale to use. If I log every minute, the data may be clear; but it would take a lot more time for the exercise to sustain. I thought I would log every hour and started that exercise. Now, the results were mind boggling! I clearly was spending some crazy hours on entertainment (mostly, on screen). I don’t want to give exact numbers, but it was way past 50% of my free time (total time — sleep time — work hours). Now this was insane. NOT sustainable. I told myself, “You will end up exactly where you are now, 10 years from now..”.
Now, I’m not saying I should be productive 100% of my time. Of course, with recharge, my time becomes a lot more productive. This is the other difference between tracking money and time. When you track money, 100 rupees is equal to 100 rupees (Ignore inflation, etc. in this context). But 1 hour of time in the morning may not be equal to 1 hour of evening time. My mood, state of body and mind, etc. play a huge role in determining the productivity. Of course, I didn’t consider the productivity to collect data. My goal was to bring the amount of time that I spend on entertainment to less than 25% then. This was in October 2020, when there was lockdown due to COVID everywhere. I didn’t make any change to my habits and continued just tracking my time. Just by tracking my time, I somehow became aware of what is right to do and what is not. Over the next 3 weeks, I could clearly see that my habits were improving. I was giving more time to what was important, and less time to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. I realized that my time doesn’t need to go to entertainment, for me to enjoy it. I enjoy a lot of other, productive things too. So why not use those to recharge myself? After 3rd week, I was spending less than 30% of my free time in entertainment, and I picked up a new habit of drawing.
It is very important for me to continue to track resources. That reminds how the habits are, and how to correct habits with time. The awareness that I get from this tracking just slips off if I stop. At the end of a week, I can analyze how this week went, and how I want the next week to be.
My next resource that I am going to work on is my food. We know what happens if we have more, or less food. There are many food tracking apps available, and I am thinking of using HealthifyMe. I know this is going to be a fun ride, because I love sweets; and I know sweets are the worst, above a limit. I also like veggies and fruits. That should give me some good points 😉
To optimize any resource, the procedure is simple. Track how it is being utilized now. Once you get a sizeable amount of data, (anywhere from 2 weeks to a month should be good enough in most cases), cluster the data. Clustering is a process where similar data are put into a basket. For example, when you are tracking time, the time you spend in connecting with your family goes to one basket, and the time you spend in cooking goes to another, and exercises go to a different one. To collect data, you can get assistance of any of an ocean of apps available out there. One suggestion would be to get an app which can export data as csv or in excel format, so that you can process data in your own way if your app doesn’t give enough clarity. You can define the number of clusters based on your data set. Once you have it, Assign the priority to each basket, and see which basket is the culprit, which is taking more resources than it should. From next week, be mindful of how much resource you give to that basket.
See? This easy exercise gives you control over your resources. All you need is discipline to track it. Once you have data, your mind becomes conscious, and controls itself! Clear and organized life helps your mind be calm too. New thoughts emerge easily in clear minds compared to cluttered minds; and the first step to achieve that is to organize your resources. All the best!
